This is just for kicks, and requires a little work. I recently became aware of a dreadful article that I’d love to share with you, but then I thought, “my readers are pretty damned smart; let’s see what they have to say first.”

The article in question, “External Qi of Yan Xin Qigong differentially regulates the Akt and extracellular signal-regulated kinase pathways and is cytotoxic to cancer cells but not to normal cells” just seems ripe for feeding into the dewooificator. Now, the full text is behind a paywall, and it wouldn’t do for me to share my full text copy with you. I certainly can’t prevent readers from participating in academic discourse and sharing the article with each other. Anyway, here’s the rest of the citation:

Comments

I understand almost nothing about biochemistry, however I cannot determine how they constructed the control group – is there a control procedure, or did they merely compare to cells that didn’t undergo this procedure:

“Treatment of cells by external Qi of YXQ
Cells were treated by external Qi of YXQ essentially
as previously described (Yan, Zheng, et al., 1988; Yan et
al., 2004). Briefly, cells cultured to near confluency were
transferred to the treatment room, treated by external
Qi of YXQ for 5 min and then returned to the incubator.
To determine the effect of external Qi of YXQ
on Akt and ERK1/2 phosphorylation, cells were harvested
and analyzed by Western blot 10 min after the
treatment. To examine the effect of external Qi of YXQ
on the EGF-mediated ERK1/2 activation, BxPC3 cells
were serum-starved for 48 h before they were exposed
to external Qi of YXQ. Ten minutes after the exposure
to external Qi of YXQ the cells were stimulated with
EGF (100 ng/ml) for 20 min and harvested for Western
blot analysis. To investigate the effect of external Qi of
YXQ on the Akt and ERK pathways in fibroblasts, the
cells were subjected to 24 h of serum starvation, treated
by external Qi of YXQ, and harvested at 0.5, 1, 12 and
24 h after the treatment.”

It is not at all clear in what way the experiment was controlled.
From the methods section:

After incubation at 37 ◦C and 5%
CO2 for 2–4 h, the plates were read at 490 nm with
a plate reader. Data were calculated as percentage of
the control cells after subtracting the background OD
(optical density) of the culture medium.

From the results section:

The percentage of cells in the sub-G1 population
was 1.2% in control cells, but increased to 31.6% after
the treatment, with concomitant decreases of cell populations in the G1 and G2 phases of the cell cycle (Fig. 4B).

“control” is also mentioned in many of the diagrams, but the control group is never defined in any useful way, AFAIK.

Oh dear. My parents used to make me come with them to their Yan Xin Qigong club meetings. It was all Chinese physicists who were convinced that frequently imagining a pulsating fruit between your hands will eventually make it so you would never have to eat or drink again (you can survive off of the qi alone!). Most painfully boring hours of my life. My dad still tries to convince me that Dr. Yan Xin can change the structure of water molecules using the power of his mind! What exactly that means is unclear to the both of us.

I am not sure. I find it difficult not to be highly skeptical of someone that spits out sentences like this:

“Multiple studies have shown that external Qi can be emitted by highly talented/trained Qigong practitioners, while ordinary people are unable to deploy external Qi of therapeutic, physical or chemical effects. ‘Qi’ is considered as the basic element of human vital energy in TCM. The underlying theory of TCM is fully based on balancing Qi according to the theory of Yin-Yang, an approach that also takes into account the biological rhythms, and the chronotherapeutic principles is integrated into external Qi therapy of TCM”

What’s going on at the Harvard Medical School anyway?!? And how was this paper accepted when most of the authors’ premises are not only implausible but disproved as well! (for instance in the latest two Cochrane reviews, acupuncture which relies on Qis was shown to be a very strong placebo!)

The other thing that confuses me is that they treated cells in vitro. Does that mean that the Qi runs in small cell cultures as well? I though life energies were supposed to be associated with humans as a whole (you know, holistically :-)). Now it seems that even a cell has this life energy. And apparently, even the cell’s energy paths can become blocked!!

I cannot even imagine a Qi practitioner manipulating energies over a cell culture in the lab!!

Could the effects that they’re seeing be due to confluence effects? As cells become more dense in culture, they can undergo drastic changes. I don’t have any experience with the particular cell line this paper used, but pancreatic endocrine cell lines can switch from producing beta cell markers (like insulin) to alpha cell markers (glucagon) depending on how dense they are. They don’t really describe the controls too well, so I’m not sure if they came from cells as confluent as those that got the treatment.

Also, they harvested the cells 10 minutes after treatment for the phosphorylation studies. Isn’t that awfully fast to see such meaningful changes? (provided the treatment “works” by modulating some other cellular pathway)

Finally, does the image of someone in a white coat with their hands in a tissue culture hood concentrating at a plate of cells for five minute crack anyone else up?